I Think I Am, But I am No Different Than the Dumb Masses
I feel like I haven't been reading very much lately, but I do think i have been thinking about fiction and writing, and it is seeping into my blogging. Here is another one, except not really about literature per se, but more about one of the rockstars of modern literature: Gabriel Garcia Marquez. (I am too lazy to figure out the accents, but I know where they belong.)
"Rockstar," you say?
You see, the New York Times contained an interesting article this morning about Garcia Marquez and the shiner he received from fellow author, Peruvian Mario Vargas Llosa (whom I have never read). A photographer captured the black eye, received in the 70's as part of a thirty-year feud between the authors.
Aside from being a really cool photograph, the story behind it is completely titillating. I could not help myself, as soon as I saw the headline, from clicking to read the full article, and even more, to see the picture itself.
And that is when it hit me. This has nothing to do with Garcia Marquez's masterpiece One Hundred Years of Solitude. It has everything to do with me wanting to know the details behind his feud with another author, over a woman no less.
And really, how does that make me much different than these losers who want to know the grisly details of Anna Nicole Smith's life and death? My interest in the individual may stem from a different source (my love for his writing) than theirs (Wealth? Fame? Large Breasts? I cannot begin to imagine why one would be so interested in someone so completely void of holding interest for me.) But in the end, the lowest common denominator is that I wanted to see the black eye, and hear the lurid story of one author's life in much the same way that millions want to see Britney's shaved head.
Next time someone at the church preschool asks you to come help out tomorrow because they might need a few extra hands with both class pictures and the Easter egg hunt occurring on the same day, all somewhere between 9 a.m. and noon?
Run.
You will no doubt end up both running the whole Easter Egg hunt and being in charge of capturing the whole thing on digital. I had to hide eggs for the one year old class, then help them hunt for them, then the two year old class eggs had to be hidden, then the three year olds had to find theirs.
After each group went, we then had to have them turn their baskets in, so that we could distribute the eggs back out evenly. (Neal Boortz would keel over at this "redistribution of wealth" lesson in action.)
You think the animal kingdom is cutthroat? You should see these little things pushing, shoving, and biting - yes, biting - to get a cheap plastic egg with a Peep in it. Human beings, on their basest level, are not pretty.
And the fact that I am leading the Easter egg hunt and I don't even know if I believe in the whole resurrection story? Well, that is just . . . ironic. And so very, very not punk rock.
Dooce has this cute thing she calls "How to Charm Me." I often think of things that the kids and husband do that are just downright charming and then I forget to share them. Not today!
How Rollie charmed Annie today:
Three year olds talk a lot. I mean a LOT. They pretty much wake up, walk out of their room, come in your room, tell you to wake up, and then bombard you with constant questions for the next, oh, thirteen hours or so. Non-stop. You don't have children and you think I am exaggerating; I am not. It is the Spanish fucking inquisition over here.
Before I have coffee, I just nod and say uh-huh, even when Rollie says,
"Mama, mama, mama, mama. I asked you a question. Mama, I asked you a question. Mama!! I asked you a question."
The question is usually,
"Mama, why do cars just bump?"
Translation: Why do cars bump into each other in races and get into wrecks? Sometimes, it is
"Mama, why do you like coffee?"
I want to tell him the truth, which is that I am addicted to coffee and I can't handle his fucking questions all day without drinking it. Instead i say,
Me: "Because it is good." Him: "Why it's good?" Me: "It just is. Drink your milk."
Kids questions aren't influenced by the constraints of physics in any way whatsoever. Last night, Rollie asked us
"Why can't you go outside the walls?"
We aren't sure what this means, but i think he was trying to find out why we can't walk through walls, and well, damn. The explanation for that is over my head, how the fuck am I going to explain it to him? A good answer for one like that is
"Go ask your father."
And yes, I now often answer him with only "Because," or even the dreaded "Because I said so." You may judge me for this when you have walked a mile in my shoes and listened to the incessant damn interrogation.
Biology is a remarkable thing. Survival of the Fittest actually extends to human children. In addition to their little immune systems and ability to heal from wounds quickly, they also have this neat little mechanism where, just about the time you are going to wring their little necks if they utter another syllable, they pop out with something so funny, or absurd, or clever, that you bust out laughing and forget to kill them. Case in point:
"Mama, when is bunny coming?" "Easter." "When is Easter?" "Easter Sunday." "Tomorrow?" "No. Sunday after next." "What is Sunday?" "The day after Saturday." "Is Tiller going to have candy?" "If y'all are good, you will both get candy for Easter." "From the Buster Bunny?
And that, folks, is what happens when you have been watching Bugs Bunny and talking about the Easter Bunny all in the same day.
A while ago, I read an article in Oprah's magazine, O, about an actress' favorite novels. It is a recurring article in the magazine, and my favorite part of a magazine that I actually think is really great. They ask famous people about their ten favorite books, and the people list them, and also tell what was so inspiring about them. For example, here's what Laura Linney told O about her favorite books.
I don't know what it is about that feature that always draws me in: I do have a terrible habit of always trying to see what complete strangers are reading. If I am in a coffee shop, I will look around at every person in there to see if one of them is reading something that I have never heard of before, or something i love already. I love the voyeuristic nature of looking over someone's shoulder, much like checking out a person's bookshelf at home, or their CD collection. I guess it is that peep into someone's reading choices that I like about it, and even better, the people tell you why they liked them. As if by seeing a person's reading choices, I could know what makes them tick. God, if Oprah could only get Christian Bale to reveal his favorites and why.
Anyway, I think the actress being interviewed this particular month was the love interest from the movie Pearl Harbor. (Can't remember her name, but she is so beautiful that I was sure her choices would be dumb as hell. Yes, as a matter of fact, I do hate beautiful people.) I can't remember any of the other books she listed, but in particular, the way she discussed Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials series really struck me as the way I talked about some of my favorite books. I made a note to myself to check them out next time I was at a bookstore and then promptly forgot about them until a couple months later when I happened to run across them while looking for something completely different. I picked them up and then devoured all three in less than two weeks.
They are children's books, supposedly, or maybe young adult, although the last book gets a little out of what I would consider the realm of children's fiction. They are set in present-day Oxford, but with so many layers of parallel universes in the books, they sometimes have an almost Victorian sensibility that then throws you for a fantastic loop. Like other beloved children's novels by Rowling, Lewis, and even Tolkien (yes, i am throwing the comparison out there!), these books create their own world, similar enough to our own to be believable and so completely different as to capture the imagination completely. I loved everything about them - from the not so elementary emotional subjects tackled, to Lyra, the smart little cookie of a protagonist. The antagonist is as love-to-hate as Cruella DeVille, and the other characters, (including humans, animals, and witches) are all so real you could reach out and touch them. The books are three of my favorites, and the thing that most impresses me about them is that I could have read them at ten and enjoyed them just as much as I did in my early 30s. They have that quality that I adore in a novel - the ability to work on as many levels as the universes contained within.
After finishing them, about the same time as the last of The Lord of the Rings trilogy films arrived in theaters, I thought to myself,
"Dear God, please make a movie of these books. Wait. No, God, please don't. There is no way that I can bear another of my favorite books distorted and watered down and ruined for me on the big screen. I don't think the success of the LOTR film adaptation can be repeated."
I go through this all the time at the thought of favorite novels adapted for the big screen. At times, though my desire to see the film is there, I will just pretend it was never made, knowing that some director's vision will never match what I have created in my own mind of what a book looks, feels, and sounds like.
I experienced both sadness and excitement when Todd told me they were making The Golden Compass into a film. For the last year or so, I have loosely followed the casting for the film. (Nicole Kidman as Mrs. Coulter - Brilliant choice! Sam Elliott as Lee Scoresby? Perfection. Some newcomer with the god-awful name Dakota Blue Richards as my beloved Lyra? I shudder to think what the result will be.)
And then today, Todd sent me the following link to the director's teaser trailer on YouTube. I debated watching it. To watch it is to change the image I have in my head of Lyra and the rest forever.
I totally watched it. It looks really great. Even Dakota Blue, although she looks nothing like I imagined. Gollum looked different than I imagined, too, though, and I really like him now.
Cool stuff, but I am kind of glad there was no internet when I was reading other childhood favorites. I may never have learned to drink, or lost my virginity, or gone off to college. I think I would still be sitting up in my room reading some WikiNerdOPedia.
After my post on Wednesday, I started thinking: Wow, my husband might not be so jazzed about my discussing past smooches on my website, now that I am like a married woman and supposedly-upstanding citizen. It also occurred to me that the cheated-on ex might read that lovely little tidbit, but i am assuming that there is some kind of statute of limitations on how long after an incident one can still justifiably consider oneself wronged, especially when we haven't been together in almost ten years, and for the last six of those years the perpetrator (that would be me) has been happily married to someone else.
It's not like I've ever been fired for what I've written, but I have had a couple instances where people were not too happy about what I had written. Feelings have been hurt. People have worried that feelings would be hurt if certain people who don't read Dogwood Girl ever did come across it. Let me say for the record that I love my family and I love my in-laws, and truth be told, they are the absolutely most wonderful in-laws I could imagine having, even if they don't serve me wine on holidays. They are just very different from my own family, and it is in those differences that I often find humor and feel compelled to write about it. I am pretty open about what I say on Dogwood Girl, and I am not ashamed of anything I have written.
There are some things that I haven't written about, though; I am proud of the restraint I have shown in some cases. There have been times where it would feel really good to give someone a good razing, but diplomacy wins out, at least occasionally, with me. This is some great peak of maturation that I never thought I would begin to scale; I am not known for my tact. I am not known for my compassion, sympathy, empathy, sensitivity, or any pussy adjectives like that. I don't mean to hurt feelings, but I do mean to be honest and truthful and direct, and that often means that people get hurt. Oops.
Anyway, I was thinking about this when my husband came home from a work thing the other night. Todd is in advertising, and when ad people get together, they drink. Todd came in a little merry and I knew something had put him in a good mood. I wrote a while back about Todd's weight loss. (I am very proud of him.) Well, since he has lost the weight and started wearing the blazer, he is really starting to wrack up the female attention. Some of my married male friends have mentioned that girls come onto them more since they married than they did before. This is strange, but I can see it. Girls are bitches for the most part. Anyway, a friend of Todd's was talking to some girls at the party and I don't know the context of the whole conversation, but he said, "Are there any cute guys here?" Guess who one of them thought was the cutest guy there? Yep, that'd be my husband. I could tell Todd felt good about it (who wouldn't?) and maybe a little sheepish.
Me? I have no problem with it. I think he deserves every last bit of it and I like to see him feel good about himself. Also? It means that if he is at work parties talking to young girls (did I mention she was a young thing?) who think he is cute, then I can pretty much talk about whatever the fuck i want on here, with no guilt.
Last night, I took a night away from the kids and had a burger at the EARL (best burgers in America!) and then hit the coffee shop to write for a little while. Over dinner on the sidewalk, I read Todd's Men's Journal. There was an article about the 50 Best Places to Live. Two Atlanta towns were on the list. Dahlonegha, which I could see, and Gainesville. Huh? Gainesville was on the "bedroom community" list. Basically, i think they were saying that you could live there and commute to Atlanta every day. Obviously, these jerks don't actually drive in Atlanta, or they would know that a 50-mile commute in Atlanta can take three hours to complete on a bad day.
Also? It's Gainesville.
Wow, got a little off subject there. What I was really thinking, as I ate my Blue Bacon Burger and gazed at The East Side Lounge across the street, was this: Things have really changed for me in less than ten years.
East Side Lounge used to be The Fountainhead. I remember a February night back in 1999, when I left the bar with friends Honey and Andy, and my sister. We were pretty loaded, and as I got in the car with them (Lisa was not so loaded, and she was driving,) we discussed the people we had met that night. Thoughts on Robin's friend, Todd? I believe I said, "He seemed really nice." Then we proceeded to discuss a couple other people Honey and I hadn't seen since college and they looked exactly the same! And then there was that weirdness of seeing two guys that I hooked up with in college. One I made out with on the roof of my boyfriend-at-the-time's house while said boyfriend was in the house below. Everyone who knows me will attest to the fact that I am way classier now, but word to the wise, children - you cheat on your boyfriend, even if it's the only time you have ever cheated, and even if it was only a stupid drunk kiss, you might just end up running into someone you might not want to hanging out with the man you will marry; Karma is a total bitch like that. The other i made out with at a party, then ended up living with platonically later and who turned out to be a total psychopath.
I mean, pretty memorable night! You run into two former hookups and the man you will spend the rest of your life with, all in one night, in one little bar, in one little corner of Atlanta and the world. I was giddy that night, leaving the bar, and I like to think that while part of it was the alcohol, part of it was some deep part of me that felt and knew on an almost cellular level that I had met The One.
I don't know, but things sure have changed since February 1999. Now I am just sitting here blogging in our second house in the same neighborhood, and trying to block out the sound of my kids beating the shit out of each other with Hot Wheels and lunchboxes.
Not that I'm complaining. I kind of like my life better now than i did back then. But I wouldn't mind a drunken evening at The Fountainhead with my husband again, and the following day sans kids to recover. March 31st anyone? March 31st is the night.
Oh, and everybody wish Dogwood Girl's Daddy a big old HAPPY BIRTHDAY! I love you, Dad.
Well, really it is tomorrow (Mar 21), but since it is based on Greenwich Mean Time, in the U.S. it falls at about 8:07 PM tonight. There is something so frightening about the universe, or at least our little piece of it, coming together in such a brilliant alignment.
Little-known fact about me: I kind of loosely follow nerdy things like eclipses, meteor showers, the equinox, etc. I can lose hours reading The Old Farmer's Almanac. I think there is something almost romantic about the lost art of following astronomy, and of having an appreciation for the changing of the seasons. Just a hundred years ago, people really paid attention to first and last freezes, moon phases, and the like. These things had great bearing on when and where and how crops were planted and harvested. Now, we never pay a bit of attention. We just buy our wilted, pesticide-treated lettuce at Kroger with not a thought of how it came to be there.
Here is this amazing knowledge and tradition, followed for thousands of years, and then lost in the blink of an eye that is the 20th century.
Okay, off to put the kids back in the crate and take a few more bong hits.
This is a picture of me, my sister, and my cousin Adam. That's me in the middle. I used to sit on the arm of that chair and eat dinner off of a t.v. tray watching Battle of the Planets, which was my all-time most beloved show, but I digress.
That was about 1977 - Adam and his brother, Graham, lived across the street from us. (This is GA. A lot of us grew up living across the street from our cousins!) Anyway, Adam and Graham are the closest thing I have ever had to brothers. I know their faults. I love and adore them both.
That was thirty years ago. This is 2007. Adam's wife Jenny gave birth to a baby girl this morning. I feel just like an Aunt. And if that little girl is anywhere as cute as Adam was, I am going to have to have someone to make sure I don't squeeze the baby till her eyes pop out of her head.
Because look at us. We were cute. Good genes.
Congrats, Addy. I can't wait to meet the newest Dunstan addition.
I was gonna give a quick update on how my basketball picks are doing, but i can't read the damn thing. Suffice to say that I don't think I am in the lead.
Turns out i am not a genius after all. Still can't get comments for the March Madness and Best of posts. So, if you just have to say something (nice or not-so-nice), post it here. I am moving on. Have spent way too much time already trying to fix this crap.
I think I mentioned that in addition to blogging about stupid stuff here on Dogwood Girl, I also blog about stupid stuff for Metroblogging Atlanta. You can see my latest Metblogs posts in the links over on the right side of this page.
The blogging thing is really just a hobby, and an outlet in the case of Dogwood Girl; I can't afford a therapist. In the case of the Metroblogging posts it is more of an exercise in putting my writing out in front of an unbiased (read: not friends and family) public. I have found that I am more brave about the fiction I am writing since opening up my non-fiction blogging to public scrutiny.
A lot of times people will come right out and say that something sucks, which is fine, and a great way of thickening the skin - Forming scar tissue for the writer, if you will. Recently, though, two of my posts were included in Metroblogging's "Best of" pages. It's not exactly a Booker or a Pulitzer, but it is nice to feel validated for something that you enjoy doing just for the sake of doing it.
Anyway, if you care to check them out, you can see them here and here.
I got a wild hair the other day, and I decided to perform an experiment. What happens when a SAHM with no knowledge of college basketball attempts to pick winners for the NCAA tournament? One guess: I know nothing about basketball except how it is played. I don't really follow it, I have never been to a college or pro game, and I have no idea who is good and who isn't. Basically, it is like I am picking random lottery numbers.
It ain't gonna be pretty.
If I did it correctly, I think that you can view my brackets here.
With nods to my brother-in-law the Gator and my favorite UK fan, Jason, I put both their teams in the Final Four. With apologies to Jason, it looks like I am the only person who did put Kentucky in. At times when making my picks, I was like, "Oh, Winthrop has a basketball team?" Where the hell is Winthrop?
I think maybe I don't have a great chance of winning the $10,000 cash prize ESPN is offering to the winner, but maybe the Best Buy gift card for $5,000? Anyway, it will be something to occupy me during March I guess. Not that I will really pay much attention unless I freakishly foretell some wild upsets.
Challenge: Anybody else want to do this with me? It is free. And you have to do it today. I think the thing starts in the next couple of days. If you are interested, let me know. We can set up a pool, like. . . five bucks or something? I think there is a way to add people to groups so they can "play against each other." I am sure all my sports-following friends are laughing their asses off at me right now.
Camille is the only other person I know who shares my interest in this personality test stuff, but at least I know one of you will read to the end. I swear, every time I take a variation of the Myers-Briggs personality test, I get a slightly different result. It seems that I score right in the middle for Introverted/Extroverted, so depending on how I am feeling a certain day, one or the other comes up. I also score in the middle on the Perceiving/Judging one, so that also changes. I am always an ST, though. This one (ISTP) pops up most often, though, so it is pretty close to the way I am. When I lived in Denver, everyone in my small office had to take this thing. Then we all had to compare our results, with the help of some consultant, and the idea was for it to help us understand each others' working styles and to work better together. Instead, we made fun of each others' freakishness of personality, discussed who should be fired based on their profile, and talked about who was most likely to come in and shoot up the place. Which could totally be an episode of The Office.
Things are a vast improvement over last week. Rollie only got one timeout at school today and is being pretty agreeable today. He is very excited because he had a personal phone call, just for him, from his Uncle Lyle. I ran four miles, then walked another .9. I think I easily could have run farther, but I got a blister, which was okay until it opened up, and then not so much. Also, no one so far today has thought that I look pregnant.
I went to the gym Thursday. I didn't want to, because I have this stinking sinus cold thing, where my head hurts, and my snot is a nice, thick, brown-green, and when I turn over in the bed at night, I feel the air pressure in my sinuses changing and it makes a popping noise that keeps me awake. So, I took medicine, that day-time cold medicine, that doesn't really make you feel better, it just makes you feel different in an "Is my head vibrating?" kind of way. Anyway, I wasn't really in the mood for it, but I hadn't been all week for the same reason, and I wasn't dying or anything, so I went and I walked two miles. I had to walk two miles, even though I forgot my IPod, and exercising sucks when I don't have music. When I found out I didn't have my IPod, i thought about just grabbing the kids out of the nursery, packing them back in the car, and going right back home.
I didn't do that, though, because when I brought the kids into the nursery in the first place, the same Goddamned well-meaning nursery worker who said it the last time after I had Rollie, and not right afterwards either, said to me:
"How are you and the baby doing?" she says.
I stare at her. I look at Rollie, then at Matilda, who is quite obviously a toddler now. I look blankly back at her. Then I realize.
"I'm not pregnant." You fucking dumbass whore.
So, even though I didn't feel like working out at all, and much less after her thoughtless blow to my self-esteem, I got my [fat to the point of looking pregnant] ass on the treadmill.
The moral of this story, in case you somehow don't know this one, is the following:
UNLESS YOU SEE A BABY'S HEAD COMING OUT OF SOMEONE'S VAGINA, DO NOT ASSUME THEY ARE PREGNANT.
Things like this make me feel old. I now have a little sister is who over 30, married, and a proud homeowner. She is talking to me about things like how to plant a lawn. Good stuff.
Congratulations to little Leelee and Mark on their new place. Hurry up and get in there, then let me know what time to drop off your niece, nephew, and favorite dog.
Tiller, you are 17 months, and I have been pretty bad about documenting your milestones. You started walking a while back and now you are on fire, hurtling forward so quickly on your not-so-steady feet that I fear you will fall face-first into whatever is in front of you. Sometimes you do, but often you recover, and I laugh at my nervous stomach afterwards. You have learned to climb stairs and just started coming back down on your own (backwards on hands and knees, of course.) Thank God, because I was getting pretty tired of coming up the stairs to rescue you at the landing when you got up there and then cried, realizing you couldn't get back down. I am amazed by the way you little ones push the envelope, exploring everything, even when you don't know what you will find, or how you will return. It is like a person choosing to fly a plane without knowing how to land, or climbing a mountain without knowing how to come back down. You are pretty fearless.
You are talking up a storm. It started very slowly, mostly "Dada." Then: "ball," "bear," "bowl." Other words: dog, kittycat, book, moon, balloon, elmo, shoe, ear, milk, hello, bye-bye. Now you are chatting us up, and the other day you said your first two-word phrase: "My Dada." You are Daddy's little girl already; I almost feel sorry for him, for he has no idea how much a little girl can love her Daddy and how much suffering she will put him through later. Most of the time, though, I just roll my eyes, because you and Rollie both prefer him to me. You would think Jesus Christ was walking through the front door every afternoon, the way everyone flips out and brightens and dances in the streets. I mean, come on, I change the poopy diapers all day, and plan the meals, and pick up your coveted damn Goldfish at the store - Show your mama some love.
I am kidding, though, because you are the lovingest thing I have ever seen. You love to hug, and kiss and get kisses. You pat us on the back when we hold you. Rollie and you have hugfests, where you hug, he kisses you on the head, and then while still locked in the hug, he drags you around until you both fall over and you hit your head on the floor. Then the tears begin, but it is hard to get mad at you guys for hugging each other so vigorously.
You are very adamant about whatever you want. At dinnertime, once you realize food is in the picture, you cling and cry and follow me around, saying "bowl" which seems to be your all-purpose word for anything having to do with food or drink. If you can get your hand on a bib or bowl or cup, you bring them to us to tell us you want to eat. Now. If I am in any part of the house and the words snack, dinner, lunch, or breakfast come out, it is all over. You are ready to be picked up and taken downstairs, or you will rush straight and with purpose into the kitchen, ready to be fed. Same thing with "outside," or "go." You hear those and go find your shoes and jacket and bring them to us, ready to be dressed for whatever journey we embark upon.
Bathtime? Bedtime? Same thing. You love the bath and you love being naked. I have no idea where you got that. :-) The only thing that makes you run for cover? The word diaper. You will run like the wind to avoid having to lay down and put on a diaper and pjs. Once we have pinned you down and dressed you for bed, though, you are all business. It is story time and you will not be swayed. You bring us your favorite books and then go walk over to the rocking chair to climb up and be read to. Right now, your favorites seem to be "Goodnight Moon" and "The Moon in My Room." You also like the Sandra Boynton books and the duck book whose name I can't remember. You sit up in our laps as we rock and read, clutching your bear, pointing out your favorite things in the books, and twirling your hair, which is what you do when you are sleepy. When we finish reading and turn out the light, we hug or talk or sing for a minute, then put you down. You start twirling your hair again, clutching the bear as we shut the door. You never make another peep.
You have a funny little laugh, and you think Daddy is the funniest, then Rollie. You like to sit with us and play games. You LOVE to dance. Sometimes we have dance parties before dinner, but often a song you like will come on the radio, or the computer or the t.v. You will start turning circles to it, then look at us with big smiles to make sure we see what you are learning to do.
We see it all, and every bit of it is as thrilling as watching Rollie do it for the first time. I just wish I had more time to treasure it all, to make sure you know how important these little milestones are, and how much prouder we are of you with every step you take.
I think Comcast should pay some kind of reparations for the crap we have dealt with this week. First of all, the cable goes out while the kids and todd go out of town. So, I actually had to find stuff to do with myself. Like read. Or leave the house.
Then, we find out we can't have service fixed until today. So, all of the shows that I normally watch or record are not being watched or recorded. Battlestar, Saturday Night Live, Brothers and Sisters, American Idol, Prison Break - All missed episodes. Not to mention that the box was supposedly messed up, so they gave us a new one, meaning that everything we had already recorded was now wiped out: Prison Break and two American Idols from last week, Lost, The Office, Scrubs, Grey's Anatomy (five episodes I hadn't watched!!!!). All disappeared forever into the ether.
Then, the guy gets here and tells us that our cable has been cut, which is why we don't have service. Which I could have told him, because I had already tried watching cable over the weekend the old-fashioned way, just running the cable directly to the t.v. - No signal. But he had already killed my old box with the recordings on it. GRRRRRR.
Icing on top? We have a whole new cable from the tap to our house, but they are going to have to come out on March 15th to bury the whole damn thing. And it runs all the way from the box, around the left side of our house, around the back, and back down the right side of the house. So, more than halfway around the house has to be re-trenched.
If somebody fucks up my azaleas and hydrangeas, I am really gonna flip.
Makes me wonder if the boob tube is really worth it.
I was reading the New York Times online yesterday morning, and came across a pretty long article on the band Arcade Fire, whom I love. They have a new album out, er . . . coming out tomorrow, officer, I swear I never illegally downloaded any of it already, cross my heart and hope to die. The new album, Neon Bible is totally not a disappointment, as those things can be sometimes; I am digging on it, and it was the weekend-without-children soundtrack. You should go out and buy it today (putting money in their brilliant pockets, and maybe those of good ole Mac and Laura - of Superchunk fame - and their label Merge. Love me some Merge. And if you have not heard the Arcade Fire's debut, Funeral, well . . . get thee to a music store! You will not be disappointed, although you will be late to the game.
Funny Arcade Fire aside: They were in one of the skits on their recent SNL appearance and it was really hilarious, because, well, Rainn Wilson from The Office, and Arcade Fire. I tried to find a Youtube link and got overwhelmed, because evidently the internet brings into focus the fact that I do not have focus. (U2 and Arcade Fire doing "Love Will Tear Us Apart;" Arcade Fire and Bowie doing "Wake Up" and "Five Years." Holy Shit!!!" I will die on YouTube.)
And that brings me, quite roundaboutedly (it's a word, because I just made it up) to the point:
Arcade Fire. David Byrne. Together on a stage. DOING MY FAVORITE SONG OF ALL-TIME.
First of all, to all you lucky motherfuckers who happened to go to an Arcade Fire show in NYC and then had the unexpected pleasure of seeing them joined on stage by David Byrne, and then to realize that they were doing "This Must Be The Place (The Naive Melody)" - Well, I hope you all die, especially those of you who didn't recognize the song, and so didn't get how huge it would be to see the whole thing. For the one person who managed to get a little video of it and post it on YouTube - I love you and want to have your babies, and why couldn't you have gotten the sound just a bit better, because really, the sound is so disappointing, but beggars can't be choosers.
I cannot imagine. Okay, I can try to imagine the completely elated mindfuck of this whole moment, but really, how many Arcade Fire fans really even knew this song? It was old when I first heard it thanks to an ex. I immediately loved it. I have never stopped loving it. Boyfriend? Long gone. Still love the song, though. Everything about the unabashed cuteness of it and the way that it is so starry-eyed and dramatic, just like teenage lovers, and about how it still rings even more true and honest and sincere now that I actually know about adult love and what home really is. And God Almighty do I love that cowbell at the end. That cowbell is my soul ringing out joyously every time I hear it.
Best. Song. Ever.
Oh, yeah, and about how I get sidetracked and lost on the great Internet? Try to find something about Byrne and the Arcade Fire show and come across David Byrne's blog, and not only find his thoughts on playing with Arcade Fire, but also an interesting entry about his visit to Savannah and SCAD with his daughter. How weird would it be to be in Savannah and run into David Byrne? At Lady and Sons, no less. And then I look at the date and it was written right after the weekend we were there. Damn. Of course, Todd has already had his run-in with Byrne and his bicycle, but it could happen twice, right?
"The only true currency in this bankrupt world... is what you share with someone else when you're uncool." - Lester Bangs
Damn. Should have named Dogwood Girl "www.theonlytruecurrency.com."
Kids and husband left around 3:30. I fucked around with my dying motherfucking DVR and cable for thirty minutes or so. Turned music up really loud. Removed all vestiges of life with children from my view. Then I put on mascara and switched my stuff from rather large Old Navy backpack Sharpied with "Rollie" and "Tiller" on the straps to my petite Kenneth Cole purse. (Note to Mike: This reminded me of a pair of jeans I had that you wrote on with a Sharpie, and also the Army hat you had in high school/college, again with writing on it, that I always tried to steal. Remember what they said? I cannot for the life of me.)
Went to Kroger. Bought two bottles of wine and one Martha Stewart spring gardening magazine. I want to plant stuff and watch it grow, for the second spring in a row, but with the house on the market, it is just container gardening all the way. Went to Outback. Ate petite filet, baked potato, and salad with blue cheese, along with rye bread, and a glass of cabernet. Crikey. Read Martha Stewart magazine and lingered over meal by myself.
Drove home. Came inside. Loved on dog. Went upstairs to put on PJs. Came downstairs. Bestowed treats on pets. Poured glass of wine. Sat on floor and pulled out DVD baskets to decide what to watch. Really wanted to watch American Idol. (The Shame!!!!) Decided on either: St. Elmo's Fire. Say Anything. Some Kind of Wonderful. Almost Famous.
Almost Famous won out.
Almost Famous is one of those movies that I never really get tired of. Todd makes fun of me, but I love Cameron Crowe. Can't help it. He is sentimental in all the right ways, and few of the wrong ones. Even Elizabethtown was bearable. Not perfectly executed, (Brit as an American? Fucking KIRSTEN of wet t-shirt Spidey action DUNST ??? Please.) but perfectly well-meant.
I got nothing much else. Kinda drunk. Listening to music and blogging. Totally uncool.
Think that's bad? Tomorrow night I am having dinner with my parents and wouldn't be upset if they wanted to spend the night and play some cards. Because that is what the uncool, non-DVR-capable, Amish-like do on a Saturday.
I love my kids, really I do. But I have to say I am much more disappointed that my DVR is fucked up and can't be fixed until Tuesday than I am that my kids are gone for two nights.
I was kind of looking forward to an evening at home completely vegging out by myself, maybe even eating dinner in front of the t.v. - we never do that anymore, because of all that eating dinner together promotes familial wellbeing crap. I miss my coffee table being my dinner table. I miss Alex Trebec over dinner.
I guess I will, as my sister says, make like the Amish, and catch up on my reading.
Yesterday, Tiller and I dropped Rollie off at school, then headed for the gym. We were coming through Oakhurst and were on 2nd Ave. We stopped at the four-way stop at Oakview. This intersection is across a two-lane street (Oakview) which has a grassy median in the middle. So, when you are crossing on 2nd, you go across one lane of traffic, then there is an area that cuts between the grassy median, and then you cross the other lane of Oakview. We were the first car there, then two other cars pulled up: One at the Stop to our left, and one at the Stop directly across from us. There was no one at the Stop sign to our right. We began to cross and as I reached the beginning of the middle of the intersection, a truck (Ford F150-sized, I'd say) came blowing through his Stop sign on my right. He was going about 40-45 miles and hour and didn't even slow for his Stop sign. I slammed on my brakes, and skidded a few feet in the median section, coming to a stop only a few feet from where the truck passed. I sat on the horn, taught Tiller how to give the bird, and then started shaking. If we had been one second faster, the truck would have hit the front, right side of my van. Another two seconds, and it would have t-boned us on Tiller's side of the van. Either way, it would have fucked us up, if not killing her.
I spent the next hour or two just thinking about the tenuousness of our existence on this earth, the preciousness of a baby girl, and how quickly the rug can be pulled out from under us, control completely out of our reach. I was FREAKED. Today, I am not so shaky and wigged out, but still kind of scared and angry when I think about it.
Anyway, we picked up Rollie from school and found out that he has been acting out in class. He is hitting, kicking, pushing, and won't stay in line. They also informed me that Rollie was the most difficult child in the class. Great. Just what a conscientious mother wants to hear. Sure, the teacher added that it was most likely his age - he is the youngest child in his class, and he is within a week of the birthday "grade cutoff" in the state of Georgia.
We have been seeing some of the same behavior at home. Todd and I have been at our wits' ends (albeit, our wits don't encompass that much distance) trying to figure out the origin and the solution. Along with this more physical behavior, he has been saying things like,
"I wanna be first."
"I win."
"I wanna be in front."
"You are a joke!"
Rollie continues to bump and cut in front of us. Not a big deal for us, as I know who is going to win if we have a Rollie/Daddy collision; A little bit bigger deal when wobbly, only-walking-for-a-few-months Tiller is the one being bumped and cut off. We have tried taking away privileges and toys. We have tried consistent time-outs. We have, on occasion, tried spanking for extremely blatant and strong physical behavior. Nothing has worked.
He has also been asking us repeatedly "Mama, why do cars bump?" We would answer, "It is not nice to bump." We had long conversations about how good cars do not bump, and that bad cars bump, and that we will not accept the behavior. In one ear and out the other. He still asked about why they do it, as if I am capable of explaining good and evil?
It became obvious to me after talking to the teachers yesterday, and giving good thought to his behavior at home. It is the influence of that seemingly-innocuous, Oscar-nominated movie "Cars." His favorite movie. The one he once watched three consecutive times in one day while sick on the couch. The one that is going to break his heart, because we are not letting him watch it anymore.
Yep, it seems that Rollie is questioning us about the behavior, because he can't watch the movie and tell that some of the cars are good, and some are bad. He is not capable yet of drawing that line between acceptable and non-acceptable behavior. And so it begins: We have now censored what he watches to the extent that we are not allowing him to watch something that he wants to watch. As I type, he is laying on the couch watching that little PBS pussy, Caillou. Sigh.
Subscribe to Dogwood Girl 
